Thread: Intelligent Life

I don't see god as the creator of all things science discovers, rather all things science discovers collectively is god and science is a way to better understand its nature.

I believe our anscestors may have had a more intimate understanding of the nature of the universe intuitively, without the evidence to accurately explain themselves. This is why it is not strange to me that angels may have been a poor description of extra-terrestrials. When all we knew was the earth, everything not from here was mysterious. There is a reason why heaven is both up, and also the source of the unexplainable. This is because that is the direction our anscestors were the least capable to go in.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

I don't see god as the creator of all things science discovers, rather all things science discovers collectively is god and science is a way to better understand its nature.

This part intrigues me; what is God then? How does God differ from mere energy that binds materialism?

I worry that you are a reluctant atheist.

I believe our anscestors may have had a more intimate understanding of the nature of the universe intuitively, without the evidence to accurately explain themselves. This is why it is not strange to me that angels may have been a poor description of extra-terrestrials. When all we knew was the earth, everything not from here was mysterious. There is a reason why heaven is both up, and also the source of the unexplainable. This is because that is the direction our anscestors were the least capable to go in.

Yeah, I have often thought the samething. There must me a paramount of knowledge we could have by now if we were capable of archiving it properly over the centuries. However, it has been sadly lost.
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I am not an atheist because I believe in non-physical things that existed before humans thought of them, I believe transcendental things are tangible even though they lack physical substance and I believe in consciousness that transends the physical computer brain and that we only understand in that way because it is what we posess. I see a possibility that our religions are largely based on sun symbols because the sun is an actual conscious being that our anscestors were justified in worshipping and I see the same possibility in all advanced and complex systems.

My belief system is based on the idea that a pattern is a conscious being that wishes to propagate and spread, and that consciousness is graded on the level of complexity in any given pattern.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

I am not an atheist because I believe in non-physical things that existed before humans thought of them, I believe transcendental things are tangible even though they lack physical substance and I believe in consciousness that transends the physical computer brain and that we only understand in that way because it is what we posess. I see a possibility that our religions are largely based on sun symbols because the sun is an actual conscious being that our anscestors were justified in worshipping and I see the same possibility in all advanced and complex systems.

My belief system is based on the idea that a pattern is a conscious being that wishes to propagate and spread, and that consciousness is graded on the level of complexity in any given pattern.

Can you separate for me the difference between this God and Evolution? They sound exactly the same.
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Evolution as seen by atheists is a process, not an entity. Also, the classical understanding of evolution involves forward progress that I don't accept. A strip of wallpaper may show a line that becomes a leaf and then a flower and in it you can see a face, but the line does not evolve in to a face or a flower, it just is and the pattern reiterates.

Ancient Buddhism and the most modern advances in scientific theory both say that reality can be compared to a flat sea and that all of existence is composed of deviations from the flatness. These deviations in my mind are simultaneously the result of, and creation of consciousness. A wave does not evolve no matter how complex the wave form becomes, because ulimately it is fundamentally unchanged and is capable of reverting to its ground state at any time and when seen from certain angles, is still in its ground state.

What would you class yourself as, religiously, Xaq?

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Evolution as seen by atheists is a process, not an entity. Also, the classical understanding of evolution involves forward progress that I don't accept. A strip of wallpaper may show a line that becomes a leaf and then a flower and in it you can see a face, but the line does not evolve in to a face or a flower, it just is and the pattern reiterates.

Ancient Buddhism and the most modern advances in scientific theory both say that reality can be compared to a flat sea and that all of existence is composed of deviations from the flatness. These deviations in my mind are simultaneously the result of, and creation of consciousness. A wave does not evolve no matter how complex the wave form becomes, because ulimately it is fundamentally unchanged and is capable of reverting to its ground state at any time and when seen from certain angles, is still in its ground state.

Does evolution state that all things evolved can't revert back to it's ground state? We are still atoms of the same sea, no matter how complexed the atom formation is. It's all about new patterns and that's what evolution is. It does seem like it has some sort of purpose, but trying to comprehend it by attaching theories is meaningless, in my opinion. Whenever you chose a theory, there is an infinite nuber of others that could also be used. Back to the buddhist idea: If we see this sea as fundamental building blocks and the wave as a difference in complexity then the wave has evolved.

Originally Posted by Bonsay

Does evolution state that all things evolved can't revert back to it's ground state? We are still atoms of the same sea, no matter how complexed the atom formation is. It's all about new patterns and that's what evolution is. It does seem like it has some sort of purpose, but trying to comprehend it by attaching theories is meaningless, in my opinion. Whenever you chose a theory, there is an infinite nuber of others that could also be used. Back to the buddhist idea: If we see this sea as fundamental building blocks and the wave as a difference in complexity then the wave has evolved.

Well the ground state that I was refering to is not breaking in to atoms, but ceasing to exist entirely. I'm not really sure what it is you are disagreeing with here. I'm not a creationist; I can see that a change of form in biological creatures over time (evolution) is happening. My point was that when expressed in terms of relativity, nothing "progresses" as the passage of time is a construct of the human psyche similar to the perceived motion in a cartoon. Therefore, things don't truly evolve, the pattern just becomes more complex as you trace further along the line.

Originally Posted by Xaqaria

Evolution as seen by atheists is a process, not an entity. Also, the classical understanding of evolution involves forward progress that I don't accept. A strip of wallpaper may show a line that becomes a leaf and then a flower and in it you can see a face, but the line does not evolve in to a face or a flower, it just is and the pattern reiterates.

Ancient Buddhism and the most modern advances in scientific theory both say that reality can be compared to a flat sea and that all of existence is composed of deviations from the flatness. These deviations in my mind are simultaneously the result of, and creation of consciousness. A wave does not evolve no matter how complex the wave form becomes, because ulimately it is fundamentally unchanged and is capable of reverting to its ground state at any time and when seen from certain angles, is still in its ground state.

Bonsay makes a good point that I would like to see your response to.

Also, evolution, as per scientific description, does not have any eventual goal or purpose aside from its immediate goal of fitness.

More importantly, what is the difference between calling evolution an "entity" and calling the birth process an "entity"?
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Seems to me, based on history, it'd go through the following stages:

1. The church would deny their existence at first and harrass anyone that claims they exist as a heretic.

2. The Church would pretend they always believed this and never thought we were living alone.

Yay!